in baking, cooking, eating, kayaking, reading, running, snowshoeing, traveling, and just being me.

February 27, 2011

This weekend we are in Puyallup, WA for the Northwest Aviation Conference and Trade Show. Last night we went to the Highway 99 Blues Club in Seattle for dinner, drinks and music.

The night was okay.

GPS led us to Western Ave (the office address, not Alaskan Way (the club entrance). Not to worry there is an staircase from Western Ave to Alaskan Way.

$10.00 parking - not bad considering we were in Seattle. There is free parking down on Alaskan Way, although it was pretty full.

$14.00 cover charge

The regular chef had the night off, so there was a limited BBQ menu.
Food was okay. I had pulled pork sandwich. The pulled pork was really good. The hamburger bun it came in was dry. No worries.

Hubby ordered Jambalaya. They were sold out. He switched to Gumbo instead. He didn't get his meal until after we had all eaten, our plates had been cleared, and we asked the waitress 3 times for his food. Seriously his meal was a good 40 minutes, after everyone elses. He said it was amazing once it finally arrived. It was very spicy and half way thru he needed another beer. 45 mins. 45 mins to get a beer. We ordered 3 beers at the same time, 2 Fat Tires and a pale ale. 15 mins later we got 1 of the Fat Tires and the Pale Ale. It was another 30 mins and me asking for the manager to get Hubby his beer. By which time his gumbo was cold and congealed.

The service was bad. Really horrible. Which was a shame because music was great. Karen Lovely, followed by the Ty Curtis Band. I'd listen to both again.

Highway 99 is a well known blues club in Seattle both for it's food and the live music. Maybe we just caught the staff on a bad night. I'm not in a hurry to go back.

February 23, 2011

It snowed on and off on Monday, but didn't stick. Yesterday it snowed again and did stick. Not much, but it's still there today. Just slushy and icy and slippery. There's more snow forecast, including 8" on Sunday. I shouldn't complain, at least it's not the snowmaggedon that parts of the US and Canada had earlier this month. I am hanging out for blue skies, sun and warm weather.

I'm looking forward to wear shorts and tank tops and sandals. I want the weather to be warm enough to wear pretty summer dresses and cute shoes. Not that I have any spare $$ to buy them and if I did, I'd be waiting for a sale anyway. Why do I have champagne taste on a soda income? Plus I'd need somewhere to wear them. A cruise? A resort vacation in Hawaii or Mexico? ot to mention that if I ever get round to actually trying them on, at least half of them won't fit properly or I won't like the look of htem. I'll keep dreaming.

February 20, 2011

Hubby has been waiting and waiting and waiting for a day off with clear blue skies, since we got back from Australia. He was having flying withdrawals. Yesterday he got to fly lots. To Nanaimo and back. To Chilliwack and back. And then last night, he flew me out for dinner. Our original plan was to fly to Victoria with some friends for dinner there, but they couldn't get a babysitter.

Instead we went to Skyhawk at Boundary Bay Airport. It's not a very long flight. It probably took longer to get the plane in and out of the hangar than it did to fly there and back. But way more fun, than just driving up the road to the pub. (although there is nothing wrong with that either).

Yep, they named their restaurant after an airplane - the Cessna Skyhawk. If you look carefully out the window in the photo above, you can see our plane sitting on the tarmac.

The menu is a mix of burgers, sandwiches, chicken strips, wraps, pasta and Chinese. I particularly like how they named the different sections of the menu. I had the club house sandwich with yam fries and hubby had a pasta dish. The sandwich was good, the fries were not as crispy as I like and Hubby liked his pasta. We'll be back.

February 19, 2011

Last summer we had lime steak at a Mexican restaurant on Orcas Island. It was really good. Barb replicated it, or pretty close too it later in the summer for us.

Tonight I finally got round to making it for us. I used a recipe from BH&G's Ultimate Mexican magazine. There are so many recipes in here that I want tor try. I also made the lime crema and the guacamole to go with it.

garnish

The recipe was pretty easy. Basically it's chop everything up, chuck it in a ziplock bag with the steak and leave it to marinate for 3-8 hours.

Guacamole

The most time consuming part was the guacamole. Mashing 4 avacados is a lot of work. I used the guacamole recipe on the above page. It called for a cup of coarsely snipped coriander/cilantro leaves. I only used 1/2 a cup, and it was still overpowering. Next time I'll use less.

Lime Crema

Apart from the overkill of corinder this recipe is a keeper and we'll be making it again.

mmm so good.

Luke saw my facebook status that we had too much food, so he dropped by for dinner. I love it when friends drop by spontaneously. And he brought beer with him. He can stop for dinner anytime.

February 18, 2011

Our first night in Sydney, Anna took us to her local Thai restaurant. Hubby has had Thai food once. A long time ago. 10 years maybe. He thought he didn't like it. But I have to say he's usually willing to try any foods. So away we went. And he ate everything we ordered.

Later in the week, he asked for the peanut sauce again - he mean't the satay chicken. We ended up eating somewhere else, but he keeps mentioning the satay sauce.

Last night I finally gave in and made satay chicken. I googled a recipe that I thought I had all the ingredients for in the fridge/cupboard. Except the chicken, I knew we'd have to get that.

skewers soaking in water, so they don't catch fire in the BBQ

For the meat:

1lb skinless, boneless chicken breasts

1 tbsp brown sugar

2 tbsps low sodium soy sauce or tamari sauce

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 tsp minced ginger

1 tbsp lime juice

For the sauce:

1 tbsp brown sugar

1 tbsp low sodium soy sauce or tamari sauce

1 clove garlic, crushed

2 tbsp creamy peanut butter

2 tbsp lime juice

Apparently we don't have any soy sauce. I could have sworn we had a bottle. We have BBQ sauce, hot sauce, sweet and sour sauce and the biggest bottle of teriyaki sauce I have ever seen. But no soy sauce. How can we not have soy sauce?

So we made do, and used worcestershire sauce instead. Not quite the same, but in a pinch it worked fine. We also used ground ginger powder, as I didn't have any ginger.

Satay Sauce

This is an incredibily easy recipe. combine all the first set of ingredients together in a ziplock bag. Cut chicken into strips of chunks. Add chicken to ziplock. Marinate in fridge for an hour.

Place chicken on skewers. Grill the chicken.

Mix all the sauce ingredients together and serve with the skewered chicken.

It was okay. Could have been better. I think it was more than soy sauce vs worcestershire sauce.

February 13, 2011

Remember the street banners that were on all the lampposts in and around Vancouver?

You can still buy one or a pair for your own memorabilia collection. We have a big pink Sydney 2000 fence wrap and after the Games we bought a pair of Vancouver 2010 street banners, and they will eventually all hang in the hangar. Can you guess which pair we bought?

February 12, 2011

Just in time for today's one year anniversary of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, you can own your own very tiny piece of the podium.

5 of the podiums used during the Games have been cut into pieces and packaged up. There are 20,100 pieces in all. Pieces have been taken from the Gold, Silver and Bronze section of each podium. You can't choose which piece you want, it's all random. But you may end up with a piece from:

After you have purchased your piece of the podium you can register it's unique code on the piece of the podium page, and it will tell you which Victory Ceremonies the podium was used in and which atheletes stood on your piece of the podium.

The Organising Committee for the Sochi 2014 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games have released the 11 finalists for their mascots. And Russians get to vote by text message. The winner will be announced February 26th.

The finalists are:

Polar Bear

or Brown Bear

Father Frost or Rabbit

Bullfinch

or Dolphin

Fire Boy

or Sun

Snowflake

or Leopard

Matryoshka Dolls

My thoughts?

Both bears are very similar to Mischa, the mascot from the Moscow 1980 Summer Olympics.

Father Frost is Santa Claus and the Rabbit reminds me of the Easter Bunny.

Bullfinch kind of looks like the Twitter logo or one of those pig smashing Angry Birds.

Dolphins, I associate more with swimming and water and summer. Not the Winter Olympics.

Fire Boy goes well with the Snowflake character, but won't he melt the ice and snow?

The Sun - kind of the enemy of the Winter Olympics, No?

The Snowflake is kinda cute. Fire Boy and Snowflake look like they are supposed to be a pair.

The Leopard would look good as a speed skater, snowboarder, skier, luger, bobsledder, hockey player etc.

The Matryoshka Dolls, a pin with all 4 of them will be so big!

Which one would I vote for? No idea. Probably the Matryosha Dolls. Good thing I don't get a vote.